Monday, August 19, 2002

More Gotch Wanted: Here's a Thomas Cooper Gotch painting that I only have a black and white image of.  Does anyone out there have something in color? 11:56:11 PM

Is an iPhone in Apple's Future?  John Markoff's New York Times article discusses the evidence that an Apple cell phone is what is coming next.  I want one!! 10:31:34 PM

The Architecture of Outer Space: Ever feel like you don't quite understand how long it takes to get from place to place in science fiction movies and programs?  That's because the writers don't really know either.  Of course that lets them time things however they want but it leaves the audience a little dizzy. One cause of this is the vastness of space and the puny size of the human viisual field.  In order to get a good look at anything at interstellar distances, so they just fudge it so that somehow ships are always close to one another and moving at rather slow relative speeds.  The other big problem is that overcoming interstellar distances requires some kind of "warp drive" or "jump drive", and this creates a terrible plot problem.  If you can press a button and escape from the problems that confront you there's not much room for dramatic conflict.  That's why in Star Wars the Millenium Falcon's start drive is ALWAYS failing.  It's not bad engineering, it's poor story architecture generating  constant work-arounds.  Lastly, space is in fact big, dark, and doesn't have visual reference points to indicate on film what is going on.  So how do we solve these problems?  Well, for one thing, we have a specific set of speed and distance estimates which allow for some kind of broad consistency across episodes.  Another is that our faster than light engines can only operate in certain places (places without a strong gravitational field), so ships must move slowly through these regions and perhaps be confronted with problems and be forced to dog fight or have chase scenarios.  Of course writers can play with this a bit, but it's not arbitrary and therefore should give viewers a much stronger sense of where they are and how that relates to other places they know and how things work.  Here's a table of distances and speeds... Here's a schematic of a typical system... Here's a schematic of a typical planetary environment... 10:23:31 PM

Making money with weblogs: A Morning Coffee Notes scrambled ramble that explains how weblogs and money relate. It's so frustrating watching people struggle with the How Do Weblogs Make Money question. At some point they're going to figure it out, and then tell everyone that they cracked the nut. That's how it always goes. Someone will get credit for it, and in this case credit will be worth money. For what it's worth, I've written it up several times. Here's how it goes. There will come a day when there has been enough experimentation, and a CEO of a company that's not in software will have a weblog that makes a big difference in competition in a market that's not Internet-related. It could be the CEO of Ford Motor Company. Last week Steven Levy asked if I meant that Ken Lay would have a weblog. No, Ken Lay will not have one. But the next generation CEO will. His replacement will. Why? Because shareholders will demand it. Because there will be a competitive advantage to direct communication without middlemen. No there will not be ghost writers for CEOs, the ghost writer will be the CEO. Two-way idea-flow. And if the CEOs of existing companies turn out to be too stodgy and uptight to take the risk, new companies will take their place, staffed by users, who contract with manufacturers to ship products they know there's demand for (they're the demand). I'll go dig up a good citation in some essay I wrote years ago. I can't believe people still think that advertising and commissions on catalog sales have anything to do with this medium. That's so ink-stained and so wrong. Postscript -- I found a citation. Please tatoo this on your forehead. Post it on a post-it on your monitor. When ever you wonder how they will make money with weblogs, remember that Uncle Dave gave you the answer, for free, 1.5 years ago. "How do people make money with weblogs," asks the happy blogger who wonders out loud. "How do people make money with telephones and word processors," asks some random wise-ass. [Scripting News] 9:52:51 PM

Profit Potential For Animated Films: Here's a little analysis of valuations of all-3D movie companies like Pixar. 9:51:32 PM

New Article on Rebuildings the Twin Towers: Here's a National Review article on the growth of the rebuilding movement. 9:42:58 PM

Lawyers Sue Everyzilla: This is getting really out of hand.  Now lawyers are trying to pinch anyone who uses the suffix "zilla" in anything. [New York Times] 6:27:22 PM

Got Overclocking?  Here's a great site for overclockers.  They sell water cooling kits and have all kinds of resources for people who just HAVE to go faster! 6:17:06 PM

Intel and AMD to Release 2.8Mhz Pentium 4 Chips: Both companies are planning to release new chips in the next 2 weeks. 5:55:51 PM

Need more bullshit?  Try this random new age bullshit affirmation generator. 4:35:15 AM

© Copyright 2002 Brian Yoder.